This invention relates to ovenable food containers and more particularly to an ovenable food tray formed from a paper and paperboard laminate. The tray is formed from a laminated board having resistance to flaming.
The prior art is aware of ovenable food trays of the type which exhibit at least partial resistance to browning, discoloration, and flaming, such trays being packaged with food products therein and adapted to be placed in an oven, such as a conventional gas or electric oven or a microwave oven. It is conventional to fashion a food tray from a paperboard stock coated on one side with a heat-resistant polymeric coating, and it is well known that the paperboard may be treated with a flame retardant material and also coated on the nonfood contacting surface with a pigmented layer, for the purpose of inhibiting of discoloration due to elevated temperatures.
In the use of paperboard trays as food containers in gas ovens or microwaves ovens, severe problems of discoloration or flaming are not as pronounced as is sometimes the case when an electric oven is employed. Often, the user of the food package may place the tray very near a heating element, thereby causing severe local heating which sometimes results in flaming of the container or glowing and ashing of the portion most directly over the element. Prior art coating and impregnating substances have, in general, not completely overcome problems of flaming, glowing and ashing of paperboard trays that are subjected to severe heating conditions.